


a study in scarlet

by uniqueusernamegenerator



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: F/F, uniqueusernamegenerator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueusernamegenerator/pseuds/uniqueusernamegenerator
Summary: It started as an interest. A tip of the hat, a hang glider in the wind, the Magna Carta on a train seat.It ends with a kiss.~Post-s2, major spoilers
Relationships: Julia "Jules" Argent/Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep
Comments: 31
Kudos: 249





	1. Chapter 1

It started as an interest. A tip of the hat, a hang glider in the wind, the Magna Carta on a train seat. 

And now, Julia never quite knows what to think about Carmen Sandiego.

Because, really, she thinks, brushing her teeth with the toothpaste she always doublechecks, it's her fault she always gets into these predicaments. Carmen leaves things lying around for people to find, little million-dollar knickknacks; but she never really cares about the consequences, does she.

Carmen doesn't know what to think of Julia, either, but she guesses as she ducks behind a cargo train carriage - Julia is Agent Argent who led her into an ambush, who stole her pride and left her shivering on a stretcher, who works for the woman who killed her father. It's just that Julia is a woman on a train, too, who loves history and has freckles across her cheeks.

Except Carmen's a little too busy to be thinking about who her friends are. ACME is hot on her trail. So it goes like this: Carmen spares Julia a thought; Julia spares Carmen her career. 

Carmen looks for traces of her mother with a radio in her ear, never alone but always lonely. Julia goes from country to country and looks for flashes of red.

"I am so tired of all these false leads," Devineaux will exclaim as Julia hands him another latte. He won't make any move to get up from his seat until he thinks he spots a trace of scarlet, and then it will be a girl in a coat or a woman in a sweater but not Carmen Sandiego, and Julia will sink back into her chair and sigh with relief. "La femme rouge escapes again!"

"We can always try again," Julia will tell him, and he will sigh and butter her scone for her.

She never tells him, but she catches a glimpse one day. It's when the day's tipping into an orange sunset, and she's standing on the edge of a plaza in Spain, straining her eyes through the crowd. There's a flash of an overcoat, a turn of a head-

and Carmen Sandiego catches her eye.

She's not wearing red. She's wearing black, and she doesn't look afraid, just tired. Haunted.

"Carmen Sandiego," she breathes, but the woman narrows her eyes at her and hurries away. Julia braces her thumb to click the pen.

Devineaux comes up next to her, huffing with exertion, and says, "Any sight of her?" and she stuffs it into her jacket pocket.

"No," she lies, remembering the Magna Carta on the train. "But we should keep looking. She could be anywhere."

They do. They look and look and look, but Carmen is as elusive as she is mysterious, which is saying a lot. Chief drives herself crazy, and Julia brings Devineaux coffee on cold mornings and tries not to think about how she lied to him. Julia dedicates her time but not her effort, because she doesn't know what the point of that is - Carmen hacked them, sure, but she's never had malicious intent before. 

The Chief will fire her if she tries to defend the Lady in Red any more. Of that, she can be sure.

Carmen used to like to mess with her, tucking a gun into her jacket, looking up at her through hooded eyes on a carriage in India. Grabbing her hand in Sweden to lead her into an empty cathedral. Now she just hides. 

+

Carmen waits, and plots, but still somehow ends up bumping into Argent on a rooftop cafe in Italy one afternoon. Jules looks good, suit jacket and brown eyes that widen in shock, and it's a strange feeling that burns in her chest.

"Gonna sic ACME on me again, Jules?"

"No! Of course not," she shakes her head, wind whipping her short hair around. Jules has always been one to recover quickly. "It wasn't me who told them to come over there. I told Chief not to disturb us, but she-"

"-did it anyway. Of course. That's what she did to my-" Carmen cuts herself off.

Julia blinks. "Your who?" And Carmen rubs at her eyes with two fingers, and Julia realizes for the first time how tired she looks, wonders when the human on the train and the master superthief became one person to her.

"I slipped up," Carmen sighs, tone strained. "Don't worry about it."

There's a trace of red under her eyebrow. Julia almost reaches out for it, but holds back; this isn't her friend. This is a superthief who steals data from her company. "Miss Sandiego, you're bleeding."

She's unbothered, even as someone nearly bumps into her from behind. "Am I?"

Julia doesn't _want_ to care about Carmen's well-being, of course, but she finds herself doing so anyway. Because the thing about Carmen is she's always poised, always ready to go, so when she isn't, Agent Argent is concerned. You can't be a master thief and be stressed out.

"Can I trust you, Jules?" she reaches up to turn off her earpiece, but she doesn't wait for an answer. "I'm thinking of turning myself in. I just wanted to find someone important to me. But I don't think I ever will." She takes a deep breath. "So if worst comes to worst, you won't have to waste time on me much longer."

"Why are you telling me this?" asks Julia.

Carmen doesn't know. With a flick of her wrist, she has her hang glider out and she's flying off the roof. It's a cop-out, but a necessary one.

But she comes back one night, and she doesn't know why - she drops down from the roof and taps on Jules' hotel room window. She's barely shivering in the night air - her blood runs hot. It's a twelve-story drop and there's no reason she should be here, but Jules opens the window anyway. She's wearing red.

"Miss Sandiego-"

"Please," she says. "You can call me Carmen."

+

Carmen teaches her subterfuge, how to hide the fact that she's having midnight rendezvouses with a wanted criminal. Carmen teaches her how to mask herself in plain sight, and Julia doesn't know it, but in turn, she teaches Carmen how to expose herself.

Carmen will drop in on a zip line or a hang glider or whatever she wants, and Julia will smile, wait for her to turn off her earpiece, say, "Hello, Carmen," and offer her freshly-brewed tea. She'll bring Devineaux a latte the next morning and say that she was up late researching case files.

Julia doesn't know, exactly, what Carmen sees in her. Carmen knows. When you're hopping from Norway to Angola to Bolivia, you don't really think about where you belong. Carmen belongs in a fifty-year-old abandoned clothing factory in California. But she also belongs with Agent Argent, in whatever hotel room she's taken up residence in, among cold air-conditioning and complimentary breakfasts.

She doesn't know when it happens, or how, but one day she falls asleep in Jules' bed, and dreams of a mother with green hair crushing her to death.

When her eyes fly open in the middle of the night, and there's sweat on her forehead, Jules sits up too.

"Carmen? Did you... fall asleep here?" she asks, voice thick with sleep, and then she wakes up a little more. It's still dark, but Carmen can see her through labored breathing and dim moonlight. "Are you alright?"

"I will be," says Carmen. She glares out the window and fists her hands around the blanket. That's how she deals with things, Julia guesses.

That's not very healthy, though, so Julia leans over and wraps her arms around Carmen Sandiego. "Is this... fine?"

Carmen stiffens. She doesn't exactly melt into the embrace, but she doesn't pull away, either. Then she exhales, relaxes, and Julia does too. The girl in scarlet flits from country to country, but she never knows where in the world her heart is. She thinks maybe it's right here.

Julia holds her through the breathless moments and phantom aches in her ribs. She'll continue to do so, even if she's dead on her feet the next day and Zari snipes about her level of competence from across the room.

Blood-red sunsets accompany blood-red lipstick, and one day Carmen turns to her in the shitty hotel bed and asks her if she wants to come to her base.

"You shouldn't be trusting me with this information," says Julia. "I do work for ACME, after all."

"You shouldn't be trusting me at all," Carmen retorts, and she can't really argue with that.

+

Carmen looks different in California. Julia tries not to stare at the dip in the neckline of her shirt, the way sweat glints on her muscles as she pummels the heavy bag. She looks _happy_ , nothing like the tortured woman in the hotel room.

Carmen's mentor doesn't trust her, but Zack and Ivy do.

"Any friend of Carm's a friend of mine!" Ivy elbows her in the ribs, and she tries not to step away. Carmen slings an arm around her shoulders, and Shadowsan glares at her, one hand on the katana at his belt. Hers itches for her gun, too - something about him screams Trouble.

She goes down one morning to make tea, and he's right there, sitting with both knees tucked under him, green rug on the kitchen floor beneath. Praying, maybe, or meditating. She tries to step back instead of disturb him, but his eyes flash open and in less than five seconds there's a katana at her throat. Julia's no slouch, either - she has her vapor gun aimed straight at his nose.

He nods at her, and she raises an eyebrow back. Grumbling under his breath, he sheathes the sword and she holsters the gun.

"You have remarkably good reflexes," says Julia, nerves frazzled but voice steady.

"Hm," he grunts, and slides her a teabag.

Nobody ever asks her what exactly she _is_ to Carmen Sandiego. Julia doesn't quite know either, but she knows that the feeling in her chest isn't exactly friendly.

She has 8 missed calls from Chase. She tells him she's in Fresno and that she needs a vacation. Agent Zari doesn't call her a flake and a disgrace, but gives her a Look that says it all. The Chief pinches the bridge of her nose and mutters something about losing her best agent.

 _I am your best agent,_ thinks Julia, _I've been trained by Carmen Sandiego._

It makes her feel a little guilty, but Carmen listens with a careful ear as Julia tells her about the Arsacid dynasty, and Zack passes her the pepper, and it's quite manageable, really. 

She's been getting a little sloppier, lately, knows it's only a matter of time before she's caught out, before Devineaux looks at her with betrayal in his eyes and a latte in his hands, before the Chief, dry with disbelief, will condemn her to a look that makes her knees wobble.

Maybe she should have clicked the pen. Maybe she should have told Devineaux she saw La Femme Rouge on a rooftop in Italy. Maybe she should tell Carmen how she feels.

Feelings are complicated.

Carmen turns to her and says, "This is nice," with a sparkle in her eyes.

Julia doesn't kiss her.

Oh well.


	2. Chapter 2

All good things come to an end, eventually.

Carmen Sandiego will never let herself be tethered to one place, especially not when VILE and ACME are on the prowl. Jules Argent can't stay here forever, in a faded-brick clothing factory. So La Femme Rouge leaves with a casual smile and the screeching of car wheels. Julia lets her waving hand fall back to her side. Ivy gives her a thumbs-up out of the window.

Only Shadowsan is left at Carmen's headquarters. They are alone.

"Would you like a ride?" he asks. Julia flashes him the shell of a smile. She won't take it, of course, and he knows that already. It's just polite to offer.

ACME welcomes her back with open arms. The Chief doesn't ask after her health, just sends her to Guinea in a first class seat. Julia knows Carmen isn't in Guinea, but she isn't supposed to know that, so she keeps her mouth shut and decidedly does not feel the sharp tug of guilt in her gut.

The thing about being Carmen Sandiego's secret lover- person- _friend_ is that you need to get very good at lying very, very quickly.

Devineaux sighs and slicks his hair back and complains. Julia buys him fried plantains and thinks of how Carmen's lips would taste on hers. They fly to New York City and Julia thinks about brown knuckles over scarlet punching bags. Breakfast in London, lunch in Paris, dinner in Rome. Chief gives up and focuses on VILE, but Julia doesn't think she'll ever forgive Carmen. It's one thing to hack ACME - it's another thing to outsmart them entirely.

It's odd, she thinks, when both of them are globe-hopping.

 _Tap tap tap._ She looks up from a case file and there's a flash of red at the window, and then she wakes up with her heart in her mouth.

Julia thinks about calling her, but she's probably busy. Or asleep. Probably not. Carmen doesn't seem to sleep much.

She misses her so absurdly. She wonders if Carmen feels the same.

+

Carmen doesn't miss her absurdly, because she doesn't have time to. Carmen is busy on the 41st floor of a 40-floor building, trying not to get blood on her coat. There's an irrational wash of fear between her teeth as she ducks around a metal pipe, and Tigress knocks her hat off with an iron-tipped claw. It flutters to the ground with a shredded brim, blood-red against gray.

Tigress is not trying to obtain something for VILE. Tigress is not trying to capture a rival. Tigress is trying to kill Carmen Sandiego.

360 degrees of blue sky, and she doesn't know where in the world to go from here. Sheena has gotten so much _better_ since last time - she guesses the constant pressure from the council does that to you. If she ever knew how to be anything other than the girl who snatched her Russian nesting dolls with endlessly nimble fingers- well. Carmen doesn't really want to think about that.

"Looks like I've sheared this sheep," she snickers, all vitriol and no mercy. Carmen narrows her eyes, backs up a bit, but no, she's too close to the edge now. Tigress eyes her up and down with intense green eyes. "Oh, bad idea, Sandiego."

She takes another calculated, almost lazy swipe. For a millisecond, Carmen is teetering off the edge, off her game again, and it rushes to her head so fast she almost thinks of-

_-but when she plummeted towards the void, she would always catch herself, and if it didn't, someone else would-_

"Was it?" she asks, and lets herself tip over.

Falling off a Manhattan skyscraper wasn't a good idea - it's uncomfortable, icy wind glancing off her exposed face, pressure aching between her ears. She activates her glider, anyway. Sometimes, you just need to learn to let go.

On the rooftop, Tigress screams and kicks concrete.

Except she hasn't let go. Carmen can't stay in hotels anymore.

She kind of regrets going all Spiderman on Jules' various suites, because sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night with her blankets around her ankles and thinks she smells chamomile.

"Red? Giza?" Player prompts.

"Yeah. Egypt, you can book the flight. Ow," Carmen yelps, hot tea spilling onto her fingers and all over the bedspread. Jules would have done it better. "Ouch. Crap."

"Uh, you alright? You've been kinda distracted ever since the Tigress-trying-to-kill-you thing. I'm getting worried."

That's right. There are people relying on her, and all she can think of is tea and un-empty hotel rooms. "I'm not-" she sighs, then tries again with a new excuse in her throat. "I'm just-"

Devineaux bristles as Agent Argent says: "We were never going to find her anyway. She is much too skilled."

Julia lies to her partner. Carmen lies to her partner. Both of them lie to themselves. Lie, lie, lie. It's a casual rhythm that brings a bitter aftertaste and sleepless nights in hotel beds. On nights like this, Julia reads by lamplight, and Carmen sits against the headboard and glares at an empty wall. She's never been as good at this whole coping thing as she is at falling off high rises.

_(12:06 AM)_

_can I come over_

_I'm in Paris._

_only a country away, jules._

_Belgium?_

_luxembourg, actually. you were close though_

_Hm_

_Rue Saint-Jacques. The Le Petit._ _Please do not get caught._

+

"I'm happy you came, but you shouldn't be here. ACME has agents all over Paris."

"ACME means nothing when _you're_ here, darling," the lady in red grins, fingers curled around the stem of her wineglass, and all Julia can think is _she's drunk and doesn't know what she's saying she's drunk she's drunk she's drunk._ "We could take them. Agent Argent and Carmen Sandiego. We'd make such a great team." Then she slams the glass into the hardwood, rather angrily, and buries her face in her arms.

Glass shards skid across the counter and bounce to the kitchen floor. Julia slides onto the stool beside her.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" she asks, softer this time.

Just like that, the tension drains out of Carmen's shoulders, leaving behind nothing and everything but a woman chasing paper on a train in Mumbai. That's the girl she loves - Julia's heart thumps just a beat faster. She swallows and draws her eyes away, towards the slosh of liquor in the half-broken glass.

"I don't like lying," says Carmen. Her tone is unsteady but alcohol-smooth. "I've been telling people I'm okay, but- I don't know. I've been so distracted. I chose this job and I have to follow it through, but everything just keeps coming _back_ , you know? You remember Brunt?"

Julia racks her memory. "No?"

"She. She was my, uh," she slurs over her words, hesitates, and Julia waits. Patiently, because she's waited for months and she can wait a little longer. "My foster mom, I guess? She brought me up out there."

Oh.

Oh _no._

She really doesn't like what's going on here. But Carmen keeps talking.

"But, y'know, I've gotten over that. You, on the other hand. You. Have been distracting me," she says, jabbing a finger into Julia's shoulder. Then she passes out and her head hits the counter with a _thump_.

Julia sighs and drapes a blanket over her shoulders, and that is that.

It's not, though, because what does that even _mean?_

+

Carmen wakes up warm but with a pounding headache. Julia is gone, but she has left a voicemail on Carmen's burner phone:

"You were not in a very good state last night, and you said, some rather, um, odd things, but there is Advil and water on the nightstand," says her voice. Carmen doesn't know how to feel about that, but she pops the Advil anyway and flips channels in Jules' hotel room.

In the meantime, Julia quits ACME. Just as she's walking out of the building, Chief glaring at her back, Devineaux staring after her with a spilled latte on the ground-

"Finally," Zari snaps, and Julia turns to her slowly. "It was so obvious you didn't belong here. It was nice working with you, though."

She puts her pen in her pocket and holds out her hand. Julia stands there blinking like there's sun in her eyes, even though they're in a windowless warehouse. Zari rolls her eyes, and that's what prompts her to grasp the woman's hand and accept the handshake.

And Carmen's still there when she gets back to her hotel room. That's new.

She asks about Julia's day, and Julia tells her. It's so comfortably domestic that when they're lounging in bed, watching the newest episode of CSI, she forgets herself and kisses the top of her forehead.

Carmen smirks. "Did you just-"

"My apologies," says Julia.

"Nah," says Carmen, resting her head back on Julia's numb leg. "It was cool."


End file.
